Google AdSense Forum

For those wondering what may, or may not, be happening with their AdSense arrows (Nessie).

User Mike in adsense forum get response from Adsense support:

"""Thank you for your email.

On Friday 9th, a change went out that removed the arrow button (Nessie) from the text ads appearing on about ~5000 publishers websites. These publishers possibly intentionally or unintentionally have ad implementations that mislead users as measured by the rate of accidental clicks. For these publishers we will continue to serve ads but we have removed the arrow button. These changes are meant to optimize the experience for advertisers, publishers and users alike. Some of these publishers may see fluctuations in their CPCs, CTRs and/or RPMs from smart pricing due to these implementations.

We have put together this FAQ:

Q. Why is the button no longer on my website?

A. Our systems have determined that some ad elements in text ads implemented on your site are not performing well for users, advertisers, and/or the publish network, therefore, the arrow button may not display on your ads moving forward. Different ad elements may or may not appear in text ads depending on what is deemed best performing for users, advertisers, and publishers. We believe these changes will encourage advertisers to spend more on the network, and lift earnings for our publisher clients in the long term.

Q. Why was the button removed from all the pages of my website?

A. Our systems have determined that some ad elements in text ads implemented on your site are not performing well for users, advertisers, and/or the publish network, therefore, the arrow button may not display on your ads moving forward. Different ad elements may or may not appear in text ads depending on what is deemed best performing for users, advertisers, and publishers. We believe these changes will encourage advertisers to spend more on the network, and in our publisher clients in the long term.

Q. Why has my CTR gone down?

A. Clicks/CTR are largely a factor of ad type, ad rendering and ad placement amongst others. Depending on the performance of an ad unit we may change how ads are rendered to prevent accidental clicks. You may want to check your ad implementations as they may be causing users to take unintended actions. Please see How you can help to prevent invalid activity for more.

Q. Why has my CPC gone down?

A Many factors determine the performance of an ad including CTR, CPC, user intent, advertiser ROI, and others. While we canít draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements.

Q. Why has my Revenue/RPM gone down?

A.. Many factors determine the performance of an ad including CTR, CPC, user intent, advertiser ROI, and others. While we canít draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements.

Q. Can I do anything specific to get the button text back?

A. No. While we canít draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements. This can change over time and may or may not include additional ad elements like the clickable button.

Our internal team is working on this now and will have more information on the network wide impact of these changes.

Yep, arrows gone from my site also. Earnings have fallen about 50%. I'm slightly positive that smart pricing will iron out my earnings to normal levels after a while, it's just reflecting the drop in clicks at present.

> I wonder how they found them and determined they had to turn off the arrows?

I clicked through to a gallery site the other day that appeared to not have any navigation links at all, just a couple of AdSense ads. If I didn't know better, the AdSense arrows would be the thing I'd click to advance to the next page. Pure MFA. My hunch is Google went after high CTR sites and niches abusing the navigation angle.

I don't know if I believe that 5,000 publisher number. My site that was affected, even with the arrows which definitely helped CTR still had a very low CTR. But it is so high volume that the sheer amount of "invalid clicks" must be what caught Google's attention. Honestly, the text ad relevance dip is a much bigger impact on my bottom line than the loss of the arrows.

I didn't like the button arrows when they first started appearing, but I like them now because they've increased our CTR. As others have said, 5,000 out of something like 2 million Adsense publishers is a drop in the bucket.

My solution to this is just to ride it out. Google can easily see my page design before and after Nessie and see that the page design hasn't changed one bit and that my ad implementation didn't change until after figuring this out.

I expect it will take a few months for everything to settle down. I've probably lost advertisers over this and only time will bring them back, if ever.

At least now I understand it and can move forward.

CTR now is well below that of before Nessie. While this change is for 5,000 sites, the message is for all 2,000,000 and if you have an increased CTR, I'd be double checking my layouts for any positioning where people would think there might be more content on that arrow button. Just my opinion.

I have a high traffic site that lost arrows. Very high earnings while they were on. I don't know why Adsense didn't turn arrows off system-wide but instead singled out specific sites. This must be one hell of a manual job - 1. Find 2. Block.